Dark Angel's Ward (16 page)

"No." He glanced at me from under his lashes. "I don't imagine anyone wants to die for their sins. That doesn't mean they shouldn't."

Just what the hell did
that
mean? Part of me wanted to press him for details, but his somber tone gave me pause. I thought back to his speech about regrets and decided to let it go. For now. "Jeez, lighten up, will you? Everything's gonna be all right."

"Do you truly believe that?"

Well, frankly no, but when had I ever let pessimism stop me before? Since the honest answer wouldn't improve our chances, or his morale, I dodged the question, asking instead, "Would you rather give up without even trying?"

"No." His breath rushed out in a gusty sigh. "No. I will see this through with you."

For you.
He didn't speak those words, but they were there in his voice, in his guarded expression. I realized then that he'd pinned all of his fragile hope on me. He really had been preparing himself to die, until I had given him a reason to live.

Damn it, I wasn't worthy of his faith any more than he was of my tears. But I couldn't say that to him, not with that look on his face. "We'll be all right," I repeated, with more conviction this time.

He smiled at last. "As you say, Jandra."

"Damn right I say."

We lapsed into a somber silence after that. He surely sensed my tension through our link, though whether he chalked it up to my false confidence or the very real danger, I couldn't tell. Several times he seemed on the verge of saying something, but he never did. After a while, though, he took one hand off the steering wheel and laid it over mine where it rested on the center console.

I should have pulled away, but I didn't. I couldn't. His skin radiated warmth, soothing and sweet, like the touch of his lips on my throat last night. Like the tender pressure of his embrace as he'd carried me to the bathtub. Like the way he'd touched me when....

"Here, take this right." My voice came out breathy and high-pitched. "The bank is at the other end of the shopping center."

He had to put his hand back on the wheel make the corner, but he glanced at me as he withdrew it, with a very male expression on his face. One that said he knew exactly what I'd been thinking about, and was infinitely pleased with his effect on me. It should have made me angry. I don't know why it didn't, as a matter of fact. But I had to suppress a snort of laughter.

Zeph hung back in the lobby as I joined the line inside the bank. I would have preferred for him to wait in the car, but there were security cameras in the parking lot, of course. There would be a record of the fact that we'd been here, so I couldn't see any point in trying to hide it. Thus, better to bring the large, potentially intimidating man within arm's reach of the guards rather than leaving him outside like some sort of getaway driver. Considering the amount of cash I'd be requesting, it seemed best to play things as cool as possible. The fewer feathers ruffled, the better.

As it turned out, the bank had a daily withdrawal limit of $10,000. I had quite a bit more in my account--you can put a lot into savings when you have no mortgage payment--but no amount of persuasion or threats had swayed them from the rule book. I reluctantly agreed to take the balance in a cashier's check. Though I ground my teeth in frustration as I filled out the paperwork, it really wasn't the end of the world. Ten grand would get us out of town easily. If we needed more down the road, we'd just have to be sneaky about getting it.

Down the road. God.
I had no idea where that road would even take us.

I sat in a stiff-backed chair, waiting while the teller conferred in secret with her supervisor, when my cell phone rang. I slipped it out of my purse and checked the caller ID. Cara. This made about the tenth time she'd called me today. I pressed the reject button yet again, leaving her to rant at my voicemail, and dropped the phone back into its slot.

I became aware of a stirring in the crowd of bank patrons to my right and looked up to find Zeph striding toward me. The long line parted like the Red Sea as people shuffled aside to make way for him. "Will you cool it?" I hissed once he came within earshot. "You're making a scene!"

"You can't bring that with us," he declared in a half whisper, pointing an accusatory finger at my purse.

I raised an eyebrow. "Why not? It matches my shoes."

"Don't they contain some sort of tracking device?"

"What the hell are you...? Oh, you mean the phone? Yeah, I think there's a GPS in all of 'em nowadays. But mine's not activated--my carrier will only turn it on if law enforcement requests it. It's for finding missing people, stuff like that." His meaningful look finally sank in. Damn, I was still thinking slower than a drunken turtle. "It has to be an official request from an appropriate agency," I repeated stubbornly. "Besides, what if we need to get in touch with someone?"

"You know as well as I how much leverage the Society is capable of exerting on any agency it chooses. And whom would we need to contact? You said yourself it's too dangerous to involve anyone else."

"Yeah, yeah, so I'm right. Quit rubbing my nose in it." My fists clenched on the purse's strap. "What am I supposed to do, slap a stamp on the damn thing and mail it back home?"

"That doesn't seem wise, either."

Of course not. I'd already reached the conclusion there would be no turning back. And he was right--taking the phone along would be an unnecessary risk. I glared at him anyway. "Fine, I'll ditch it, but you are
so
buying me a new one." Someday. When it was safe for me to own one again.

"I promise," he replied.

"Good. Now relax and sit down, before the security guards shit their pants."

Twenty minutes later, my purse was heavy with twenty-dollar bills. The disgruntled bank manager had expressed his sorrow to be losing my business--then he'd insisted on taking us into a private room before handing over the cash. He'd sent for an armed guard to escort us back into the main lobby. In fact, it took a subtle vocal nudge from Zeph to shake the uniform. He'd wanted to walk us all the way out to the car.

"I don't like this," I muttered as soon as we hit the parking lot. "We were in there way too long for a normal transaction."

"I take it this is bad for appearances?"

I nodded. "Big time. If they start looking into my account activity right now, we'll only have a few minutes to get off the radar, instead of a few hours. You'd better head straight for the interstate."

"I thought we'd planned to purchase more water for you once we had the money?"

I shrugged. "Consider 'Plan A' officially discarded. Won't do me much good to be hydrated if they catch up to us and start carving off body parts."

A spasm crossed his face at my careless words, but he went on doggedly. "You need your strength."

I shook my head, ignoring the claws of thirst that tore at my throat. Talking about it would only make it worse. "We'll stop at the first convenience store outside the city limits, okay? Provided no one shoots at us or tries to run us off the road before then."

I slid into the passenger seat and made a show of fiddling with the seat adjustment, leaving my purse lying open on my lap. A subtle nudge of the elbow, and my cell phone spilled out onto the blacktop. So did my lip gloss, which I scooped up with a grumble, pretending not to notice anything else. I slammed the door shut, and Zeph started the engine. As he backed out of the parking spot, the phone splintered under the front tire with a muffled crunch.

"Happy now?" I groused.

"It was necessary."

Maybe, maybe not. That wouldn't stop me from pouting over it. "When did you get so damn smart, anyway?"

He slid me a sideways look. "Does it bother you that you didn't consider the risk yourself?"

I bristled at his question, even though I knew he wasn't trying to tease me. He was genuinely asking. "I still don't think it was that big a risk," I lied, sniffing.

"Perhaps not, but I thought our goal was to eliminate risk wherever possible."

"All right, fine. Just shut up and drive."

Seventeen

"Where?"

"Wheeeere?"

"Where are you?

The words swirled out of formless dark, echoing soft as a whisper even though they tore at my heart like an anguished shout. I fluttered my eyes open only to find more darkness. No sign of the one who had cried out for me. I called out a hesitant reply. "I...I'm here."

"Wheeeere?"

"Here," I repeated, more firmly this time. "I'm right here."

A cool breeze trickled around me, stirring the blackness like storm clouds. Something warm and soft brushed my cheek.
Found you.

"Yes," I whispered.

Warmth pooled in front of me, banishing the chill of the wind. I reached forward, grasping instinctively. An unseen hand sprang from the nothingness to twine inside mine. A human shape coalesced behind it, becoming solid, visible. I smiled at Dreamy as he took form. "Hello."

His pale eyes flew wide, as if I'd said something shocking. "Hello?"

I frowned at his reaction, but became distracted as the darkness around us began to part like a stage curtain. The setting was quite familiar--my darkened bedroom. Unlike our other encounters here, the walls and furniture had a flat, insubstantial quality, like a photograph. Or, more aptly, like a dream.

"What's going on?" I murmured.

"I've been a bit hasty, sweetness. It's risky for me to approach you when the nephilim is near." Dreamy laughed, still sounding rattled--nothing like the sinful tempter he'd been last night. "But I had to see you one last time."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said." His smile was thin, his tone hollow. "Tomorrow, Jannie, you're going to die."

"Oh. Really?"

Dreamy nodded. "It seems inevitable at this point, I'm afraid."

"Hmm." The prospect filled me with only mild concern. Perhaps his apparent lack of worry had defused my own. He could've been predicting tomorrow's weather rather than my impending demise. I looked into his bland expression and asked, "Why do you care?"

"Oh, dear heart. You still don't understand a thing, do you?" He tilted his head, studying me for a long moment. "And I had such high hopes for you. You ran away from him, away from them, rejected everything they taught you--even the name they gave you, Jandra-also-known-as-Jade. And now you've leapt from the fire right back into the frying pan."

He was probably right. But I paused, frowning at something else he'd said. "What do you mean, the name they gave me?
They
didn't get hold of me 'til I was eight." I had no question in my mind which "they" he meant.

"You're completely clueless, poor Jannie," he said, using my mother's nickname for me for a second time. I bristled at it. I'd always hated being called that.

I scowled at him. "You know, you've never said my name before. I didn't even think you knew it."

"Oh, I know a great deal about you, dear heart. Far more than you know about yourself, it would seem." He reached out a hand to touch the nape of my neck, his fingers sliding slowly upward. "J-A-N-D-R-A. They tattooed it on you at birth. It should be right here, just above the hairline."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I slapped his hand away.

He sat back, unaffected by my anger. "That's where mine is, anyway," he added with a shrug. "Apparently your mother was such a true believer, she assumed it was supposed to be your given name."

"What do you think you know about my mother? Or me, for that matter? Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"A kindred spirit." His smile turned wistful. "I've told you that from the beginning."

"No. I meant your name." I stared into his crystalline eyes as if I'd find the information lurking in their depths. Stupid of me, I suppose, but dreams don't have to follow the rules of logic, right? And suddenly it seemed all-important that I had something better to call him than Dreamy.

"Agreed," he said mildly. "It's a bit demeaning."

"Then tell me."

"Why is it so important that you know me now? It's really too late to matter." He sighed. "I regret that, though. Truly."

"Why?" I repeated. "Why do you care?"

"Because I would've liked to see you become who you really are. Helped you along, maybe. You would've needed it."

"I still don't understand."

"And it would take far too long to explain." His eyes shone too bright, his brows drawn together as if in pity. "Damn it. I wish we could've had more time together."

"We haven't had
any
time together. You're a...."

"Figment of your imagination. Yes, I forgot." He sighed again, his eyes showing genuine hurt. "Do you really still believe that?"

"Wait, what?
Are you trying to tell me you're someone? You're real?"

He chuckled. "I have a life, but it's never been mine to live. I don't know if that qualifies me as 'real' or not."

I didn't have an answer for that one. We sat in silence for a long moment, just staring at each other. Finally, he reached out to me again. He stroked his hands gently over the planes of my face, his warm fingers molding my features. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"I want to remember you. Just as you are."

"Why?"

He didn't answer, saying instead, "You're far more like me than you are like him, sweetness." He leaned in close, his whisper raising goose bumps along the side of my neck. "Sacrifice is not in your nature. Bear that in mind--it just might save you."

I raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said my death is inevitable?"

"Well. I'm no prophet, merely an observer." He sat back just far enough for our eyes to meet. "I want you to remember something for me, too."

"What's that?"

In response, he dipped his head to give me a deep, lingering kiss. I squawked in surprise, but found it impossible not to respond. I melted against him, letting his mouth shape mine. This wasn't an assault on my senses, like his seduction last night. This was slow, gentle. A farewell, if his prediction proved true. Sadness shivered through me at last, and I clung to his shoulders as if to anchor myself.